Death masks and DIY drones: activism on show at the V&A

"We took his body to a cabin in
the woods in Texas to make his death mask." If all political
protests began with a story like this, many more movements around
the globe would surely be getting the attention they deserve.

This particular story is one about how mosaic artist Carrie
Reichardt created the Tiki Love Truck in 2007, a truck covered in a beautiful
and intricate Polynesian-inspired tile pattern. Mounted upon the
truck's front, above the windshield, is the face of a sleeping man.
It's the face of John Joe "Ash" Amador, a former death row inmate
Reichardt had befriended, watched executed, and ultimately
immortalised in the Texan woods with
Nick Reynolds, where the cast was made.

"Did you know Texas is the only place you can move a body if you
have a body bag?" asks Reichardt. Amador was 30 years old when he
was executed for murdering a taxi driver in 1994, a crime he
claimed he was innocent of. The Tiki Truck, in all its glorious
colour and dramatics, was Reichardt's way of celebrating her
friend, but also protesting his death. Reichardt says the work was
her art therapy -- it's how she dealt with watching a friend die
strewn on a table, by lethal injection. That and 12-hour days spent
mosaicing the back of her home, seven days a week, for eight months
straight.

Tiki Love Truck is part of a new exhibit at the
V&A, Disobedient Objects, which presents the ordinary objects used
to facilitate protests throughout history. The exhibit takes us
through 99 such objects, a mix of digital media and physical
memorabilia, mainly obtained from the makers or activist groups
themselves. Spot 100 is reserved for new ideas. "This isn't the
final word, or the best selection, on protest objects," said
co-curator Gavin Grindon. "It's an invitation to start something
new."

The exhibition is split up into four parts -- direct action,
speaking out, making worlds and solidarity. The subject matter is
so vast, convoluted and subjective, that this had to be the case.
As several artists and observers at the exhibit preview noted,
there is a time for peaceful protest, and a time for action.
Knowing when and what the difference is, is key to the success or
failure of many movements. And so often, it hinges on the freedoms
afforded a population at that moment in time. In Gaza, for
instance, without the freedom of movement and political rights
normally afforded a nation, how can a people launch a peaceful
protest -- who will be listening to their needs?

Grindon understand these complexities all too well, having been
deeply immersed in the subject matter as a post-doctoral fellow in
visual and material culture at Kingston University. The academic
and author came to the V&A specifically to curate Disobedient
Objects, and has spent the past two years carefully approaching
global activists he already had relationships with, to convince
them of this show's importance. The exhibit largely covers a period
from the 70s to present day, from lo-fi banners and badges showing
how solidarity has a part to play, to DIY opensource
drones now used to help film demonstrations or the police.
Once the activists were shown this range -- and that their
contributions would be appearing alongside historical movements --
they gradually came onboard.

"Some were suspicious about being in a museum," Grindon tells
Wired.co.uk. "It was important to us for this reason that we take a
step back and ask them how it should be designed. The media so
often shows the picture of a window being smashed -- so activists
have this problem of being represented by people with an agenda to
undermine them."

The exhibit takes in a vast number of disparate protests and
people, from global efforts such as Occupy, to an embroidered
handkerchief made by the mother of Roy Rivera in Mexico City, 2013.
The latter is an intimate story of a mother trying to raise
awareness of a tragic situation -- her son was taken, she paid a
ransom, and she never heard from him again. Reportedly the
government has registered only a fifth of the 26,000 disappearances
that occurred between 2006 and 2012.

With such vast differences in collective power, numbers and
stories, was there a common thread that Grindon and co-curator
Catherine Flood encountered while tying the exhibit together?

"It's about agency and responsibility," says Grindon. "Taking
action doesn't mean voting every few years -- it's about blocking
the road sometimes. Taking ideas that are unpopular and making them
popular."

That agency, of course impacts how a protest object is pulled
together. During Pinochet's rule in Chile, for instance, women
began to sew complex tapestries depicting the pain of their
suppression and the loss of the desaparecidos (the disappeared),
tapestries that today make up Disobedient Objects. Workshops were
setup for women in Chile in need of an income or support, after
loved ones were taken. It was there that the Arpillera Movement,
using the textiles to express their anguish, began. "There was
solidarity in that collective power," says Grindon. "They were
suffering in silence and it shows how these things can arise from a
local context; how ideas are shared and developed. They found
solace, with their hands and eyes focussed on sewing." The practice
has been picked up in countries around the world, in Columbia and
in Ireland, with different groups adopting and adapting it.

The exhibition deals with some of the most complex protest
movements of the past decade, from Occupy Gezi in Istanbul to Syrians' battle to portray the
conflict there. Some of the tools on show are seen as more extreme,
such as the steel arm locks that can only be forcibly removed with
special saws that will detect the flesh beneath in time. But some
of the most interesting contributions of recent years are from
groups taking a totally different, but still peaceful, tact.

Masasit Mati, for
instance, portrays Assad's attack on his people through the medium
of finger puppets. The satirical webseries attacks an incredibly
sensitive subject through humour. Likewise, Artúr van Balen from
Tools For Action (formerly of Eclectic Electric
Collective) builds inflatable objects designed to change the
conversation and comment on social issues through more than a hint
of humour. In Mexico, when police attacked and tore apart a 12m
inflatable hammer at the United Nations Climate Conference in
Cancún, it grabbed headlines and highlighted the group's cause. It
also made the police look ridiculous. In one case in Berlin, police
were made to look equally ridiculous when faced with cobblestone
inflatables -- attacking it and poking at it in an attempt to deflate it.
"They don't know what to do -- if they engage with it, it starts
something of a weird game of volleyball," says Flood.

This cannot work in all situations obviously, says van Balen. In
Palestine, for instance, where the threats are real -- using humour
is not exactly a straightforward thing, when battling a cause that
can so often turn deadly. He points, however, to a movement in 2010
when Palestinians dressed like Na'vis around the release of James
Cameron's film Avatar. Painted in blue, they compared
themselves to the repressed Na'vi people. "That creative
interpretation was very powerful because of the storytelling
involved," said van Balen.

And that is what Disobedient Objects ultimately presents -- a
sensitively and intriguingly crafted story of protest. The eclectic
mosaic car might take centre stage and a giant inflatable silver
cobblestone hangs from the ceiling, along with a small drone -- but
these are interspersed with badges, placards and leaflets. That
disparity tells the story of a protest history. The people behind
the objects might not always have the ability to be as loud or
brash as a mosaic car or silver balloon, but they will find a way
to tell their story. And all 99 objects are proof of that.